Paying ta on my youtube earnings (UK)

I have never had to pay my own taxes before and I am unsure of the best way to proceed so I was hoping to talk to someone with experience in this matter.

I have started a Youtube channel a couple of months ago and it has really taken off in a big way. I know that I am going to need to pay tax on this however I do not know if i should go down the route of sole trader or registering as a limited company.

It seems that sole trading would be less hassle but if i register as a limited company my profits will look even nicer.

Hey, I am in the same boat as you, regarding taxes. This would be really helpful if someone can lead us in the right direction.
But btw, when you first started did you buy views, subs, likes?
How do you get it to take off so that you gain organic subs and views?

Hey, I am in the same boat as you, regarding taxes. This would be really helpful if someone can lead us in the right direction.
But btw, when you first started did you buy views, subs, likes?
How do you get it to take off so that you gain organic subs and views?

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Hi
Yeah I have done some reading and I am no further forward. I might see an accountant soon to see what they say as I would rather get everything in order as soon as possible.

Nah I did everything by the book and it has blown up pretty hard. Wouldnt want to risk my adsense account by doing anything that was not legit!

Initially I was posting it on reddit as if I had discovered it like "look at this ***** wow!" kind of thing but I dont really do it anymore as it got me past the first few thousand subs.

I would love to learn from somone on how to research tags and how to do all of the SEO for the videos though!

You can register as a sole trader. It's quite easy to do and if you call hmrc they will help you.

Filling in your tax return is also relatively easy - you just need a note of your business expenses, your turnover and then your profit.

You get tax free allowance every year of 9k or something like that I think.

Then you pay tax on everything above that. There is some other stuff like NI contributions etc. And it gets confusing because they charge you have if this years tax and half of the estimate of the following year, or something like that.

If you become a Ltd your tax will be much more efficient but you would definitely need an accountant and it might cost you 2k/year rather than a few hundred for self employed accounts - so it depends how much you earn.

You can register as a sole trader. It's quite easy to do and if you call hmrc they will help you.

Filling in your tax return is also relatively easy - you just need a note of your business expenses, your turnover and then your profit.

You get tax free allowance every year of 9k or something like that I think.

Then you pay tax on everything above that. There is some other stuff like NI contributions etc. And it gets confusing because they charge you have if this years tax and half of the estimate of the following year, or something like that.

If you become a Ltd your tax will be much more efficient but you would definitely need an accountant and it might cost you 2k/year rather than a few hundred for self employed accounts - so it depends how much you earn.

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Thanks for the response. Yeah I read as much online however I would like to be able to talk to someone about what i can write off, I have just bought 2 software package just for youtube so can I deduct that? I have just bought a laptop for editing too but I will also be using that for university work so how would that work?

I have heard that you can avoid pretty much all tax and NI too if you register as a limited company and only pay yourself in monthly dividends, which seems to be a highly attractive option & you can get accountants online for £20 per month which would not break the bank. I am currently on track to blast clean through my tax free allowance and I am a bit lost really

I have heard that you can avoid pretty much all tax and NI too if you register as a limited company and only pay yourself in monthly dividends

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Thats bollox, tax savings from a ltd company is small,especially after extra accountant fees. Obviously can't work out which is best without some figures so its a completely pointless question.
Another big advantage of ltd is if you get sued its not your problem its your companies problem. If theres no money in the company and you get sued then they get nothing and its no longer your problem other than your company being gone but you'd probably be allowed to start another for IIRC £12 anyway.
If the same happens as self employed then you'll probably be personally bankrupt.

On 50k a year you'd pay roughly £12,500 tax as self employed or £10,500 as a ltd. Accountants fees will be £500 or so a year more expensive so about £1500 saving.

Anything you buy for your business you can deduct, e.g your 50k profit is now £49k profit so you're paying tax on 49k rather than 50k.
You'd be supposed to estimate how much you're going to use the laptop for business/personal use. 50% of the time for business use then you deduct 50% of the price. 95% of people would just deduct the whole laptop though.
Same with internet etc, anything that your business needs

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